Tag Archives: CNN

News

Romney wins CNN debate against Obama and biased moderator Candy Crowley

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Romney brought up the Obama administrations lies about Benghazi as well as the Fast and Furious gun-running to Mexican drug cartels to seal the victory. Although the Democrat moderator lied about Obama calling Benghazi an act of terror, it wasn’t enough to save Obama from Mitt’s constant repetition of the horrible performance of the economy under the socialist Barack Obama.

Romney narrowly won, but it could have been better if he had pressed the attack on the security failures in Benghazi with more facts. He pulled his punches there, and he had no reason to.

There are two stories to this debate. First, the CNN moderator lied to protect Obama about his Benghazi security failure:

CNN correspondent and second presidential debate moderator Candy Crowley disgraced herself tonight, repeatedly intervening to save a floundering President Obama and showing why many Americans were rightfully suspicious of her ability to moderate a presidential debate fairly.

Her most outrageous act tonight was her incorrect seconding of Obama’s statement that he declared the Libya terrorist attacks to be “terror.” While Obama did indeed use the word, this is not what he meant by it. Instead, he was simply referring to “acts of terror.” There was no mention of Al Qaeda or any of its affiliates with respect to the actual attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi.

Here is the full Obama statement in reference to “terror” in Libya.

“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.”

Perusing the full Obama speech reveals that the president and Crowley misstated the facts…

She has now admitted that Romney was correct about Benghazi.

Second, the CNN moderator cut off all discussion of Obama’s Fast and Furious gun-smuggling to drug cartels, after asking a planted question about “assault weapons”:

As I reported earlier, the topic of Operation Fast and Furious came up at tonight’s presidential debate in New York. During Mitt Romney’s remarks on the deadly subject, President Obama sat in the background where he smirked and at one point, laughed.

[The] debate moderator Candy Crowley quickly changed the subject away from Operation Fast and Furious and when she was done speaking, President Obama failed to address the issue. After the debate in the media spin room, the Obama campaign wasn’t interested in discussing the details either.

[…]Fast and Furious has damaged the relationship between Mexico and the United States, not to mention, it’s laughable to hear President Obama talk about gun control when his own Justice Department armed Mexican cartels with thousands of AK-47 style weapons.

“It’s a vital issue. The President promised to run one of the most transparent and open administration in history. That’s not the case in fact literally today the Justice Department filed suit trying to get out access to records thrown out of court. The President is so upside down on Fast and Furious. He’s never directly addressed the question. He was asked specifically by Univision and he said he would get to the bottom of it but nobody has been held accountable and they haven’t provided the documents to Congress,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who sits on the House Oversight Committee, told Townhall. “I’m glad to see Mitt Romney mentioned it and actually talked about it in a proactive way as something that was wrong on every facet.”

Here are some of the other key points about tonight’s debate:

News

CNN debate: a liberal moderator and Democrat activists posing as undecided voters

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Should you watch tonight’s debate, moderated by Candy Crowley of CNN?

Second presidential candidates’ debate between Obama, Romney

  • Topic: Foreign and domestic issues
  • Date: Tuesday, Oct. 16
  • Time: 9 – 10:30 p.m. EDT
  • Location: Hofstra University, Hempstead, N.Y.
  • Moderator: Candy Crowley, chief political correspondent, CNN, and anchor, CNN’s “State of the Union”
  • Format: “The second presidential debate will take the form of a town meeting, in which citizens will ask questions of the candidates on foreign and domestic issues. Candidates each will have two minutes to respond, and an additional minute for the moderator to facilitate a discussion. The town meeting participants will be undecided voters selected by the Gallup Organization.”

Here are three reasons why you should be cautious about it.

First, Candy Crowley is a leftist who has made comments critical of the Romney-Ryan ticket. Second, the format allows Candy Crowley to select all the questions for the two candidates. Third, the last time CNN did a townhall debate, they featured questions from well-known Democrat activists and lied to the audience saying that they were “undecided voters”. Let’s take a look at the evidence for each of these statements.

First, Candy Crowley. Is she a centrist?

Newsbusters explains:

As NewsBusters has been noting all Saturday morning, now that Paul Ryan has been chosen as Mitt Romney’s running mate, the goal of the Obama-loving media is to rip him to shreds.

Doing her part Saturday was CNN’s Candy Crowley who claimed some Republicans (unnamed, of course) think this “looks a little bit like some sort of ticket death wish.”

[…]Transcript of Crowley’s remarks is below:

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN: We’ve already had this debate. All they have to do at Obama Reelect is open up the files because this debate has already happened. They just bring it back, it goes, it is, you know, what they talk about. But I think the other thing that’s worth pointing out is not every Republican has signed on to this kind of, I mean, they will publicly. But there is some trepidation…

GLORIA BORGER, CNN: They’re afraid.

CROWLEY: …that this might be, looks a little bit like some sort of ticket death wish. That, oh, my gosh, do we really want to talk about these thing? Is this where we want to go when the economy is so bad? We could have stayed on that.

Second, what about the format of the debate. Who is choosing the questions?

Associated Press explains:

Town halls have lost some of their spontaneity. The 80 or so undecided voters chosen for Tuesday’s event must submit their questions in advance and moderator Candy Crowley of CNN will decide which people to call on. She can pose her own follow-up questions.

Third, there is the disturbing pattern of CNN stacking the town hall audience with well-known liberal activists and passing them off as “undecided voters”. That’s what CNN did in a previous debate they moderated, as Michelle Malkin explains.

Excerpt:

Flashback: CNN/YouTube/plant debacle.

Refresher:

  • Concerned Young Undecided Person “Journey” = John Edwards supporter “Journey”
  • Concerned Undecided Log Cabin Republican supporter David Cercone = Obama supporter David Cercone
  • Concerned Undecided Mom LeeAnn Anderson = Activist for the John Edwards-endorsing United Steelworkers union LeeAnn Anderson
  • Concerned Undecided Gay Military Retiree Brig. Gen. Keith H. Kerr = Hillary/Kerry supporter and anti-”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” activist Keith H. Kerr

[…]If any more political plants turn up at CNN’s presidential debates, the cable-news network will have to merge with the Home and Garden channel.

At CNN’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas two weeks back, moderator Wolf Blitzer introduced several citizen questioners as “ordinary people, undecided voters.” But they later turned out to include a former Arkansas Democratic director of political affairs, the president of the Islamic Society of Nevada and a far left anti-war activist who’d been quoted in newspapers lambasting Harry Reid for his failure to pull out of Iraq.

Yet CNN failed to disclose those affiliations and activism during the broadcast.

Behold – the phony political foliage bloomed again at Wednesday night’s much hyped CNN/YouTube GOP debate.

Oh, CNN did make careful note that Grover Norquist (who asked about his anti-tax pledge) is a Republican activist with Americans for Tax Reform. But somehow the network’s layers and layers of fact-checkers missed several easily identified Democratic activists posing as ordinary, undecided citizens.

The tallest plant was a retired gay vet, one “Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr,” who questioned – or rather, lectured – the candidates on video and in person about the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that bans open gays from the military.

Funny. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was exactly the policy CNN adopted in not telling viewers that Kerr is a member of Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual- Transgender Americans for Hillary.

Sen. Clinton’s campaign Web site features a press release announcing Kerr and other members of the committee in June. And a basic Web search turns up Kerr’s past support as a member of a veterans’ steering committee for the John Kerry for President campaign – and his prior appearance on CNN in December ’03.

CNN’s moderator, Anderson Cooper, singled out Kerr (who’d been flown in for the event) in the vast audience, giving him a chance for his own filibustering moment. Marvel at it: Not one CNN journalist uncovered the connection or thought it pertinent to disclose that Kerr’s heart belonged to Hillary.

When righty commentator Bill Bennett pointed out the facts to Cooper after the debate, a red-faced Cooper feebly blubbered: “That was something certainly unknown to us, and had we known that, would have been disclosed by us. It turns out we have just looked at it.”

Cluelessness doesn’t absolve CNN of journalistic malpractice. Neither does editing out Kerr’s question (as the network did on rebroadcast, to camouflage the potted plant).

The article is quite old, and it predates the revelation that Anderson Cooper is gay. Might that explain why so many gay activists were selected to ask questions at a townhall debate?

So should you watch the debate? I think not. But if you do, be aware that CNN is a leftist organization and they are not likely to do a good job of being impartial. They want Obama to win. The best debate so far was the first debate moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS.

By the way, in a recent Gallup/USA Today poll in swing (toss-up) states, Romney now leads Obama 51-46 among all voters, and is tied 48-48 among women voters. That’s what the madness of Joe Biden in his debate got Obama. Women hate a violent, disrespectful madman.

I’ll probably watch the debate, but I’ll watch it on Fox News Live, not CNN.

Commentary

Liberal media bias: what the studies and surveys tell us

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In the wake of the Family Research Council shooting, I thought it was important to review the evidence we have about media bias in the mainstream media.

Here’s a UCLA study on media bias.

Excerpt:

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS’ “Evening News,” The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Only Fox News’ “Special Report With Brit Hume” and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.

The most centrist outlet proved to be the “NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.” CNN’s “NewsNight With Aaron Brown” and ABC’s “Good Morning America” were a close second and third.

“Our estimates for these outlets, we feel, give particular credibility to our efforts, as three of the four moderators for the 2004 presidential and vice-presidential debates came from these three news outlets — Jim Lehrer, Charlie Gibson and Gwen Ifill,” Groseclose said. “If these newscasters weren’t centrist, staffers for one of the campaign teams would have objected and insisted on other moderators.”

The fourth most centrist outlet was “Special Report With Brit Hume” on Fox News, which often is cited by liberals as an egregious example of a right-wing outlet. While this news program proved to be right of center, the study found ABC’s “World News Tonight” and NBC’s “Nightly News” to be left of center. All three outlets were approximately equidistant from the center, the report found.

“If viewers spent an equal amount of time watching Fox’s ‘Special Report’ as ABC’s ‘World News’ and NBC’s ‘Nightly News,’ then they would receive a nearly perfectly balanced version of the news,” said Milyo, an associate professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Missouri at Columbia.”

Here’s a Harvard University study on media bias.

Excerpt:

The programming studied on Fox News offered a somewhat more positive picture… of Republicans and more negative one of Democrats compared with other media outlets. Fox News stories about a Republican candidate were most likely to be neutral (47%), with the remainder more positive than negative (32% vs. 21% negative). The bulk of that positive coverage went to Giuliani (44% positive), while McCain still suffered from unflattering coverage (20% positive vs. 35% negative).

When it came to Democratic candidates, the picture was more negative. Again, neutral stories had a slight edge (39%), followed by 37% negative and 24% positive. And, in marked contrast from the rest of the media, coverage of Obama was twice as negative as positive: 32% negative vs. 16% positive and 52% neutral.

But any sense here that the news channel was uniformly positive about Republicans or negative about Democrats is not manifest in the data.”

From the Washington Examiner, a study of the political contributions made by the mainstream media.

Excerpt:

Senior executives, on-air personalities, producers, reporters, editors, writers and other self-identifying employees of ABC, CBS and NBC contributed more than $1 million to Democratic candidates and campaign committees in 2008, according to an analysis by The Examiner of data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Democratic total of $1,020,816 was given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks, with an average contribution of $880.

By contrast, only 193 of the employees contributed to Republican candidates and campaign committees, for a total of $142,863. The average Republican contribution was $744.

[…]The data on contributions by broadcast network employees was compiled by CRP at the request of The Examiner and included all 2008 contributions by individuals who identified their employer as one of the three networks or subsidiaries. The data does not include contributions by employees of the three networks who did not identify their employer.

The CRP is the organization behind OpenSecrets.org, the web site that for more than a decade has put campaign finance data within reach of anybody with an Internet connection.

President Obama received 710 such contributions worth a total of $461,898, for an average contribution of $651 from the network employees. Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain received only 39 contributions totaling $26,926, for an average donation of $709.

And more from a study done by the radically leftist MSNBC.

Excerpt:

MSNBC.com identified 143 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 16 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

The donors include CNN’s Guy Raz, now covering the Pentagon for NPR, who gave to Kerry the same month he was embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq; New Yorker war correspondent George Packer; a producer for Bill O’Reilly at Fox; MSNBC TV host Joe Scarborough; political writers at Vanity Fair; the editor of The Wall Street Journal’s weekend edition; local TV anchors in Washington, Minneapolis, Memphis and Wichita; the ethics columnist at The New York Times; and even MTV’s former presidential campaign correspondent.

And here’s a bit from that same article about The New Yorker:

The last bulwark against bias’s slipping into The New Yorker is the copy department, whose chief editor, Ann Goldstein, gave $500 in October to MoveOn.org, which campaigns for Democrats and against President Bush. “That’s just me as a private citizen,” she said. As for whether donations are allowed, Goldstein said she hadn’t considered it. “I’ve never thought of myself as working for a news organization.”

Those are the facts.

So what?

Now consider this column from Brent Bozell, which explains the difference media bias makes to political intelligence.

Excerpt:

The Republican presidential contest is picking up steam. Obama is consistently polling under 50 percent. This one’s a toss-up, and in the thick of it is the Fox News Channel. It’s not just their role in hosting and vetting the candidates. It’s their role as the chief villain in the eyes of liberal Democrats struggling to push their version of the “truth” about Obama.

Jon Stewart rhetorically asked Chris Wallace about Fox on “Fox News Sunday, because he thought he knew the answer: “Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers? The most consistently misinformed? Fox, Fox viewers, consistently, every poll.”

In the real world – outside Stewart’s smug bubble – this is garbage. A 2008 survey by the Pew Research Center asked media consumers three questions: which party was in control of Congress (Democrats), who was the secretary of state (Condi Rice) and who was the prime minister of Britain (Gordon Brown).

Let’s document how the viewers of “Hannity &Colmes” were better informed than Stewart’s “Daily Show”  gigglers on basic political facts. Hannity viewers beat Stewart’s on the Democratic majority (84 percent to 65 percent correct answers), Condi Rice (a dramatic 73 percent to 48 percent gap) and Gordon Brown (49 percent to 36). Overall, as a percentage getting all three questions right, Hannity won 42-30.

Just keep that in mind when you are watching the mainstream media news shows. A very good site to bookmark and read is Newsbusters, which documents mainstream media bias daily. I even have an RSS feed of their latest stories on the front page on this blog.

UPDATE: New York Times cites abortion advocates as neutral sources.